Stalker, Complete Overhaul

[Sophronius]

The stalker, as we all know, has come to a point that I'm not sure I could adequately describe with a couple of words.

 

Super high health/armor. (Bullet sponge)

Super high dps.

Cancels all your abilities..

etc..

 

I'm sure that the fact of many players acquiring end-game weapons created the problem that the Stalker dies extremely fast. (Pre U10) Thus many of the community demanded a better stalker. So he gets a bullet sponge buff. Further complaints (Iron Skin for one) likely employed the latest of Stalker's abilities, the anti-ability power.

 

This is completely insane. Any good developer should know that by reducing the possible options to counter an enemy is a bad decision. I won't go in to detail as I could make a hefty 2 paragraphs as to why.

 

It is understandable that going invisible and being invulnerable are a cheap way to kill the stalker, making this enemy trivial. However, what has been done is inexcusably pathetic. It's a sort of magical, "we don't want you to make this fight trivial so we will take away all your abilities." This kind of garbage should not even be a placeholder. Your only viable option against the stalker now is just to have God-tier DPS so that you can kill him before he has the chance to slaughter you.

 

I have yet to die from the stalker even once through my entire time playing Warframe, but I still must make this statement.

 

What should be done?

 

At the least, these are suggestions.

 

Defensive ability counters:

 

If one is to use invisibility against the stalker then have the Stalker do the very same at least. It would be an intelligent counter, and one that makes sense. If one is to use Iron Skin or Hysteria, the Stalker will retreat to a safe distance (teleport) and take long range shots until the ability wears off.

 

If you are completely invulnerable then the Stalker should make complete retreat until it wears off. Staying as far away from you as possible.

 

 

Damage counters:

 

Assuming that the Stalker begins to take extreme amounts of damage in a very short time, he will teleport away and go invisible. Or some such thing as this.

 

Put a damage cap on the Stalker. A hard limit of damage that the Stalker can receive per second, this way he will last.

 

 

Damage adjustments:

 

The Stalker really does not need to have the ability to down a player in 2 seconds, adjust his damage output to a more appropriate level.

 

Make the Stalker a formidable and intelligent enemy. When you are reloading or in a corner he will teleport to you and begin melee. Getting him off of you would require either a defensive ability (Iron Skin) or high DPS against him.

 

 

Movement adjustments:

 

The Stalker needs to remain in motion, making him harder to hit. Making the fight more intense. If need be, let the Stalker occasionally teleport around in the middle of combat to confuse us. You have done this kind of thing with Vor.

 

The Stalker really needs to know when to push offensively (against squishy Warframe or someone in a bad position) and when to retreat and pick off his enemy from afar. (Tanky Warframe or DPS advantage over Stalker)

 

 

 

Believe me it is incredibly obvious that the AI coding of Warframe is extremely limited. It seems to consist of 2 primary commands/directives and 1 secondary.

 

1: Charge directly at the enemy until in line of sight and shooting range.

2: Shoot enemy.

 

Secondary: This only applies to most Grineer and Corpus Crewmen.    Take cover, regardless of situation. Just take cover, even if it's unnecessary.

 

Yes this AI code needs some serious work. But it usually doesn't matter when we are being swarmed by hundreds of enemies. In fact by being swarmed, this kind of code works just fine. However, when it comes to a single entity (The Stalker) it is just embarrassingly bad.

 

 

 

 

This is the beginning in the right direction to make the Stalker an enemy that still strikes fear in his enemies, but is not a sort of God that changes the rules of Warframe just because he is not supposed to be easy.

 

The current Stalker design is not fun, not challenging, not intimidating. He is punishing, and a serious pain. There are very little options available to the player of how to deal with this enemy, limiting gameplay, choice, and interaction. Killing the Stalker is not something that requires skill right now, just extreme DPS. It needs to be fixed.

 

 

TL;DR    Current stalker design is so bad it's embarrassing. It needs a complete overhaul and removal of "Space-Magic" ability remover power. You really should read the whole thing.

Edited November 26, 2013 by Sophronius

[leonvision]

you lost me at "put a damage cap on the stalker", we all know how badly it went when they tried to do that with lephantis.

 

edit:however, i do agree the current stalker is in dire need of some redesigning.

Edited November 26, 2013 by leonvision

[Sophronius]

They are primarily suggestions. I have added the statement to the original post.

[Phextsen]

I think they've just given Stalker too much. Dispel isn't the problem it's the fact that he can survive unholy amounts of hits. In the old game he would dispel my Rhino and I would just jump all over the place dodging him while shooting him. It took a while but I could win but now all he does is dispels me and to stop me from jumping he Teleports right beneath me as I land (some people have said he can use Pull too but I've not seen him do it?). If I survive and get some good hits on him he uses absorb. If I realise he's absorbing and survive he still has a large amount of DPS and if I survive all of that he has so much health that I usually have very little time to hit him before having to dodge something. 

 

It would be completely fine for him to have some powers and the dispel ability (which I think is a pretty cool thing for him to have, makes him more of a threat gameplay and story-wise) but the sheer amount of powers thrown in to counter all the things that we exploited to kill him at lower levels is daft not to mention the high health to counter the end game DPS players had. 

 

They either need to fix him so he's more all rounded so more than end game players can take him on fairly or angle him as more of an ultimate threat that only the most powerful Tenno can face since there is always the option of out running Stalker (unless that's been taken out too?). He isn't meant to be a push over (considering for a while we could beat him by standing on a box) but as he is now he's too much of difficult foe without doing every mission with end game gear to be prepared for him.

[Leuca]

I think they've just given Stalker too much. Dispel isn't the problem it's the fact that he can survive unholy amounts of hits. In the old game he would dispel my Rhino and I would just jump all over the place dodging him while shooting him. It took a while but I could win but now all he does is dispels me and to stop me from jumping he Teleports right beneath me as I land (some people have said he can use Pull too but I've not seen him do it?). If I survive and get some good hits on him he uses absorb. If I realise he's absorbing and survive he still has a large amount of DPS and if I survive all of that he has so much health that I usually have very little time to hit him before having to dodge something. 

 

It would be completely fine for him to have some powers and the dispel ability (which I think is a pretty cool thing for him to have, makes him more of a threat gameplay and story-wise) but the sheer amount of powers thrown in to counter all the things that we exploited to kill him at lower levels is daft not to mention the high health to counter the end game DPS players had. 

 

They either need to fix him so he's more all rounded so more than end game players can take him on fairly or angle him as more of an ultimate threat that only the most powerful Tenno can face since there is always the option of out running Stalker (unless that's been taken out too?). He isn't meant to be a push over (considering for a while we could beat him by standing on a box) but as he is now he's too much of difficult foe without doing every mission with end game gear to be prepared for him.

I think the fact that he has a dispel ability when he's really just a rogue Tenno is a bit ridiculous. It wouldn't be unreasonable to give him ability penetration (for instance doing half damage against frames that are otherwise "invulnerable"), but his current iteration combined with Damage 2.0 seems pretty toxic to the game. We should be trying to fight him intelligently, not running around for minutes on end hoping we can kite him and that his AI doesn't decide to use a random unavoidable ability. A Tenno fight should include powers on both ends, not just one.

[Exodess]

/signed